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Past Conferences:

2013

Fourteenth Annual Texas Foreign Language Education Conference (TexFLEC)
Blending the Boundaries in the Age of Globalization: Trends, Challenges, and Innovations in Language Education

Friday and Saturday, February 22nd and 23rd, 2013
The University of Texas at Austin

The Texas Foreign Language Education Conference (TexFLEC) at The University of Texas at Austin is an annual conference that brings together researchers, educators and students in the fields of foreign language education, TEFL/TESL (Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language), linguistics, and applied linguistics.

Rapid changes in globalization have fostered an era of unprecedented interconnectedness between people. Language educators can now use innovative approaches that have helped blend previously definable distinctions in foreign or second language learning and teaching. It is time for educators and students to share and discuss current ideas and research on how these blended boundaries are impacting language classrooms.

2012

The Power of Openness: Improving Foreign Language Learning Through Open Education

The spirit and practice of sharing is gaining momentum and producing excitement, from high school teachers trading ideas and lesson plans with their peers in online communities, to professors making their courseware open to the public. This symposium seeks to bring together foreign language teachers, instructional designers, and educational administrators to discuss how to produce a new generation of foreign language materials called Open Educational Resources (OERs). OERs are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits sharing, accessing, repurposing and collaborating with others. Come learn how OERs enhance foreign language learning by leveraging the power of openness.

Chinese Langauge Workshop
The Yin and Yang of Learning: Chinese In and Out of the Classroom

Saturday, July 21, 2012 10:00 am - 3 pm
CBA Events Room (3.304)

This workshop aims to provide Chinese language teachers with ideas on how to create instructional and learning materials to supplement their textbooks. Chinese materials from Gateway to Chinese, a COERLL web resource, will serve as examples to illustrate how quality materials can promote effective learning outside the classroom.

Texas leads the nation in the percentage of residents who speak Spanish at home, but not everyone in Texas speaks Spanish the same way. This workshop will help educators to understand the origins of such variation and how a focus on language as it is actually spoken can enhance the classroom experience. Using authentic video samples from the Spanish in Texas Corpus project, workshop participants will collaborate in creating activities to promote student interest in their own and others' language practices.

Russian Language Workshop
On Tolstoy and Toilets: Teaching High and Low Culture in Russian

Saturday, June 9, 2012 10:00 am - 3:00 pm
CBA Events Room (3.304)

This workshop examines the place of both "high" (formal) and "low" (everyday) culture in the teaching of Russian from the beginning level. Emphasis is placed on the use of authentic texts, media, and reality to make both subjects relevant to language students. Participants will also learn about portfolio-based assessment of cultural literacy, and what part it plays in overall proficiency gains in the language.

Beyond the OPI: Making Oral Assessment Relevant

Saturday, March 31, 2012 10:00 am - 3:00 pm
CBA Events Room (3.304)

This workshop continues the conversation begun last fall with testing specialists from the Foreign Service Institute regarding student assessment using Oral Proficiency Interviews. Now, UT practitioners will share their experiences and techniques for adapting and applying the government model to an academic setting, and will show how on-going oral assessment can be implemented throughout our language courses.

The 13th Texas Foreign Language Education Conference (TexFLEC)
Welcome to the Classroom of Tomorrow: Forging the Future of Language Education

Friday, February 24 - Saturday, February 25
McCombs Graduate School of Business (GSB)

This year's conference focuses on how language classrooms of the future may appear. Language classrooms are rapidly changing with the adoption of new technologies, increased globalization, budgetary constraints, and new research findings with regard to learner factors and identity issues. It is time for language educators and researchers to gather and discuss how these new developments present opportunities and challenges for language education.

2011

What They Say...is What You Get: Assessing Oral Proficiency

Saturday November 12, 2011 10:30 AM - 3:30 PM
CBA 3.304 (Events Room)

A one-day workshop designed to cover the basics of oral assessment by eliciting ratable speech
samples in class. What They Say..... is What You Get will feature specialists from the Foreign Service institute. This workshop will give practical knowledge of how to better assess Oral Proficiency within the classroom, whether using intensive or traditional instructional practices.

Two specialists in heritage language instruction will provide UT faculty and teaching staff with valuable insight into preparing curricula, materials, and design syllabi for heritage language learners drawing on the experiences of Russian and Spanish, but applicable to all heritage groups.

Teaching the Whole Class: Learner Differences in the Language Classroom

This workshop is organized to prepare language instructors to teach the different learners in our classrooms. It will give participants practical and theoretical knowledge of how to approach different types of learners with different needs in language courses. Speakers from the UT community who teach language, specialize in teaching different learners , and/or deal with different needs in the language classroom will share their experiences, practices, outcomes, and give examples of activities used to teach all of our students.

How to Teach Intensive(ly): High Voltage Teaching in the Foreign Language Classroom

Saturday, August 13, 10:00-4:00
McCombs Graduate School of Business (GSB) 2.124

This one day workshop will discuss how to integrate Intensive methods into existing language classes and how to turn Intensive teaching into Intensive courses. Lectures will focus on general methodology and results from current Intensive classes at UT and offer suggestions for curricula and syllabi as well as types of out of class assignments that can be implemented in high school and college level classes.

This two day workshop will focus on technology use in the foreign language classroom. Presenters will discuss innovative techniques for developing materials and delivering instruction for immediate use in high school and college classroom. Speakers will demonstrate ways to integrate technology into language teaching to help increase time on task for our students both in and out of class.

Sponsored by The Foreign Language Education Program, Texas Language Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and The Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio

The "academic pipeline" is a metaphor that education researchers have used to describe the flow of students progress from primary schools through higher education. The theme of this year's conference addresses crucial questions about that pipeline for ELLs and foreign language learners: To what extent does K-12 language education prepare students to transition smoothly to college and higher education opportunities? What practices provide continuity and support for students as they navigate through elementary, secondary, post-secondary, and continuing education contexts? What factors cause students to "leak out" of the educational system and/or out of language studies?

Teaching the Speakers: Heritage Language Learners and the Classroom

Saturday, April 9, 2011
Sponsored jointly by the Texas Language Center and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies

Presentations at this one-day workshop will focus on one commonly-taught language (Spanish), and less-commonly taught language (Russian). The talks will address the growing necessity of integrating learners with varying degrees of prior exposure to the language into the curriculum, recognizing the different instructional needs, cultural perceptions, and affective factors of heritage language learners. Following the morning presentations, an hour-long open discussion will address any questions and comments.

2010

Beyond Babel: The Survival of Language Programs in the Current Economy

November 6, 2010
Sponsored jointly by the Texas Language Center and the College of Liberal Arts

In a climate of shrinking educational budgets and threatened academic programs, language instructors are compelled to seek ways to keep our courses productive and vibrant with fewer resources. This mini-symposium brings together two nationally-known language specialists to present their thoughts on the current situation and ways for us as instructors to survive this difficult period. A panel discussion including some of UT’s own language faculty will continue the discussion, and field questions from the audience.

New Media/ New Materials: A Hands-On Workshop for Language Instructors

July 28, 2010
Sponsored jointly by the Texas Language Center and the College of Liberal Arts

The Texas Language Center will host a one day hands-on workshop in developing teaching materials for your language classes. Three experienced language instructors, Carl Blyth, Orlando Kelm, and Tom Garza, and a technical specialist, Kyle Mitchell, will work directly with participants to suggest innovative techniques for delivering instruction and developing materials for immediate use in class — just in time for fall! All four presenters will demonstrate ways to integrate new media into language teaching to help increase time on task for our students.

Revisiting Proficiency: 21st Century Views on Language Learning

April 24, 2010
Sponsored jointly by the Texas Language Center and the College of Liberal Arts

Since the creation of the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines in 1986, much of the language teaching profession has used these descriptors to define the learner's functional capacity to use the language. Critics, however, cite both the difficulty of assessing competence through the oral proficiency interview, as well as the descriptors inability to take into account individual learner differences, as limitations of the guidelines. This symposium and workshop aims to bring our understanding of proficiency-based instruction into the 21st century with first-hand recommendations and practices from specialists from the School of Language Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State